Internship

Most of you know that I will be going on internship next year. Our class, right now, is in the middle of the assignment process. Basically, the way it works at Trinity, is the contextual ed director assigns you to an internship site. Now, there is a lot of stuff that actually goes into this process so it is a good match. Back in October, each of us had to turn in internship applications that had all sorts of information about us on there. It encompassed everything from what geographic locations we’d like to where we had grown up to previous work experience to a one page autobiographical statement. Almost anything you would want to know about me, fact wise, was contained in those seven pages or so (ok, not really, but it sure seemed like it). Then, after we turned that in, we sat down for a one-on-one interview with our advisor and Jane Jenkins (the contextual ed director). The purpose of this interview was the flush out what was in the paperwork and for Jane to get to know each of us a little better.

That was pretty much what has happened up until now. Next week is a meet and greet event during which several potential supervisors come to campus. As part of this, Jane gives us a list of people she wants us to talk to (at least three people). These meetings are one-on-one with the potential supervisor and 45 minutes is allocated for each meeting. They occur over a three day period. Anyway, last week, we got our list from Jane of people to talk to. I have six people on my list! We are encouraged to sign up for more meetings, but I think six is plenty. My schedule is pretty full next week.

The thing about this is that not all the supervisors will be there. But there are reasons Jane has us talking to the people she has us talking to. Either they are potential people she is considering for us or they match characteristics of people she is considering, people who can’t be there. I actually think some of them might just be Jane seeing how we do with somebody who will be totally wrong for us. =) Having six people makes me think that she either doesn’t know what to do with me or I have the potential to work with any of them and she wants to see how I’ll do. I believe it might be a combination of the two. There are probably some of my classmates that will be very obvious who they will work with best and who they won’t... but as my advisor said in my one-on-one with Jane in October, I will be easy to place because he believes I could do well with a variety of people. And so a variety of people I get: Portland, OR; Ft. Worth, TX; St. Clair Shores (Detroit), MI; Chagrin Falls (Cleveland), OH; Johnstown, PA; and Jamestown, NY.

Up until last week, I’ve been pretty ambivalent about the whole internship process. I’m excited to go, but at the same time, I knew it was way off in the future and I have other things to worry about now. I think, honestly, my advisor has been more excited about the whole thing for me than I have been. But last Wednesday my mind temporarily left this place and was out on internship for the day. Thankfully, things went back to normal on Thursday. I am my old ambivalent self again. I don’t know that I would mind going to any of those places geographically. It will certainly be interesting to see what the supervisors are like next week. I will certainly let you know what I think.

Kate